The Organization of American Historians presented 28 awards, prizes, fellowships, and grants to 42 historians, graduate students, and organizations on Friday, April 1, at the Sheraton Boston Hotel during their annual Conference on American History.
Each year the OAH recognizes outstanding professional achievements in the field of American history. Awards were presented by Erika Lee, Rudolph J. Vecoli Chair and Director of the Immigration History Research Center at the University of Minnesota and the OAH’s 2022–2023 president. Lee’s term began on April 2, immediately following OAH’s annual business meeting.
Award Winners
ROY ROSENZWEIG DISTINGUISHED SERVICE AWARD
Contributions that enrich understanding of and appreciation for American history
Elaine Tyler May, University of Minnesota
FRIEND OF HISTORY AWARD
Outstanding support of historical research, public presentation of American history, or work of OAH
Made by History, Washington Post. Currently led by three historians—Kathryn Cramer Brownell (Purdue University), Carly Goodman (Writer and Historian), and Brian Rosenwald (University of Pennsylvania)
FREDERICK JACKSON TURNER AWARD
First scholarly book dealing with some aspect of American history
Gabriel Winant, University of Chicago, The Next Shift: The Fall of Industry and the Rise of Health Care in Rust Belt America (Harvard University Press)
MERLE CURTI INTELLECTUAL HISTORY AWARD
Best book published in American intellectual history
Emily Klancher Merchant, University of California, Davis, Building the Population Bomb (Oxford University Press)
MERLE CURTI SOCIAL HISTORY AWARD
Best book published in American social history
Samantha Seeley, University of Richmond, Race, Removal, and the Right to Remain: Migration and the Making of the United States (Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture and University of North Carolina Press)
RICHARD W. LEOPOLD PRIZE
Best book on foreign policy, military affairs, historical activities of the federal government, documentary histories, or biography written by a U.S. government historian or federal contract historian
Christian Friedrich Ostermann, Woodrow Wilson Center, Between Containment and Rollback: The United States and the Cold War in Germany (Stanford University Press)
CIVIL WAR AND RECONSTRUCTION BOOK AWARD
Most original book on the coming of the Civil War, the Civil War years, or the Era of Reconstruction
Lorien Foote, Texas A&M University, Rites of Retaliation: Civilization, Soldiers, and Campaigns in the Civil War (University of North Carolina Press)
JAMES A. RAWLEY PRIZE
Best book dealing with the history of race relations in the United States
Destin Jenkins, Stanford University, The Bonds of Inequality: Debt and the Making of the American City (University of Chicago Press)
ELLIS W. HAWLEY PRIZE
Best book-length historical study of the political economy, politics, or institutions of the United States, in its domestic or international affairs, from the Civil War to the present
Destin Jenkins, Stanford University, The Bonds of Inequality: Debt and the Making of the American City (University of Chicago Press)
LIBERTY LEGACY FOUNDATION AWARD
Best book on civil rights struggle from the beginnings of the nation to the present
Mia Bay, University of Pennsylvania, Traveling Black: A Story of Race and Resistance (Belknap Press of Harvard University Press)
LAWRENCE W. LEVINE AWARD
Best book in American cultural history
Tiya Alicia Miles, Harvard University, All That She Carried: The Journey of Ashley’s Sack, a Black Family Keepsake (Random House)
DARLENE CLARK HINE AWARD
Best book in African American women’s and gender history
Tiya Alicia Miles, Harvard University, All That She Carried: The Journey of Ashley’s Sack, a Black Family Keepsake (Random House)
DAVID MONTGOMERY AWARD
Best book on American labor and working-class history, with co-sponsorship by the Labor and Working-Class History Association (LAWCHA)
Jane Berger, Moravian University, A New Working Class: The Legacies of Public-Sector Employment in the Civil Rights Movement (University of Pennsylvania Press)
MARY NICKLISS PRIZE IN U.S. WOMEN’S AND/OR GENDER HISTORY
Most original book in U.S. Women’s and/or Gender History (including North America and the Caribbean prior to 1776)
Jennifer L. Morgan, New York University, Reckoning with Slavery: Gender, Kinship, and Capitalism in the Early Black Atlantic (Duke University Press)
LERNER-SCOTT PRIZE
Best doctoral dissertation in U.S. women’s history
Tiffany Jasmin González, James Madison University (dissertation completed at Texas A&M University under the direction of Sonia Hernández), “Representation for a Change: Women in Government and the Chicana/o Civil Rights Movement in Texas”
LOUIS PELZER MEMORIAL AWARD
Best essay in American history by a graduate student
Hannah Srajer, Yale University, “Imperfect Intercourse: Sexual Disability, Sexual Deviance, and the History of Vaginal Pain in the Twentieth Century United States”
BINKLEY-STEPHENSON AWARD
Best article published in the Journal of American History during preceding calendar year
Jane Dinwoodie, University College London, “Evading Indian Removal in the American South” (June 2021)
DAVID THELEN AWARD
Best article on American history published in a language other than English
Emmanuelle Perez Tisserant, Université Toulouse Jean Jaurès–FRAMESPA, “Les révoltes en Californie mexicaine: Entre résistance à l’État et intégration du républicanisme fédéral (1821–1832)” [“The revolts in Mexican California: Between resistance to the state and the integration of federal Republicanism (1821–1832)”] (Revue d’Histoire moderne et contemporaine)
HUGGINS-QUARLES AWARD
Graduate students of color to assist with expenses related to travel to research collections for the completion of the Ph.D. dissertation
Britney C. Murphy, University of Connecticut, “Outsiders Within: Volunteers in Service to America and the Boundaries of Citizenship, 1962–1971”
JOHN D’EMILIO LGBTQ HISTORY DISSERTATION AWARD
Best Ph.D. dissertation in U.S. LGBTQ history
Beans Velocci, University of Pennsylvania, “Binary Logic: Race, Expertise, and the Persistence of Uncertainty in American Sex Research” (dissertation completed at Yale University, with advisers Joanne Meyerowitz and Joanna Radin)
JOHN HIGHAM RESEARCH FELLOWSHIP
Graduate students writing doctoral dissertations for a Ph.D. in American history
Willie J. Mack Jr., Stony Brook University, SUNY, “‘Triple Minority’: Haitian ‘Boat People,’ Policing, and Mass Incarceration in New York City and Miami”
Terrell James Orr, University of Georgia, “The Roots of Global Citrus in ‘Nuevo South’ Florida and Rural São Paulo”
MARY K. BONSTEEL TACHAU TEACHER OF THE YEAR AWARD
Contributions by precollegiate teachers to improve history education within the field of American history
Jennifer A. Ingold, Bay Shore Middle School
ERIK BARNOUW AWARD
Outstanding TV program or documentary film about American history and its study or promotion
Look Away, Look Away, Scenic Films, Patrick O’Connor, director/producer, Margaret McMullan, producer
STANTON-HORTON AWARD FOR EXCELLENCE IN NATIONAL PARK SERVICE HISTORY
Excellence in historical projects for, by, and with the National Park Service
Hispanic Legacies of Route 66 in New Mexico. Kaisa Barthuli, Program Manager, Route 66 Corridor Preservation Program, National Trails Office, National Park Service; Angélica Sánchez-Clark, Ph.D., Historian, National Trails Office, National Park Service; and their project team of interns, fellow staff, and community members
OAH/JAAS JAPAN RESIDENCIES PROGRAM
Fellowships for two U.S. historians to spend two weeks at a Japanese university
Farina King, Northeastern State University
Erik Loomis, University of Rhode Island
GERMANY RESIDENCY PROGRAM
Resident scholar in U.S. history at the University of Tübingen
Thomas G. Andrews, University of Colorado Boulder
SAMUEL AND MARION MERRILL GRADUATE STUDENT TRAVEL GRANTS
Graduate students who are Ph.D. candidates and presenting a paper or serving as a commentator on a session or panel at the annual conference
Justin A. Grossman, University of Rochester
Connor S. Kenaston, University of Virginia
Haleigh Marcello, University of California, Irvine
Michelle M. Martin, University of New Mexico
OAH PRESIDENTS’ TRAVEL FUND FOR EMERGING HISTORIANS
Graduate students and recent Ph.D.s in history whose papers or panels/sessions have been accepted for inclusion on the OAH Conference on American History program
W. Tanner Allread, Stanford University
Noah Hanohano Dolim, University of California, Irvine
Ari Annise Green, North Carolina State University
Jessica R. Locklear, Emory University
Angus McLeod IV, University of Pennsylvania